


Old Finn

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Georgia Runoff Election Prompts [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eldritch, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Forests, Hiking, Horror-ish, Standing Stones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: Rey and Ben go hiking in the woods, and find something unexpected there.
Relationships: Finn & Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Georgia Runoff Election Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015236
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: Reylo After Dark





	Old Finn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midwinterspring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwinterspring/gifts).



> To encourage people to make donations to the senate runoff election in the US state of Georgia I offered to write prompts for people who made donations, and this is one of those fics!
> 
> Midwinterspring's prompt: soft eldritch Reylo or Finnreylo.
> 
> This is Reylo with a touch of Finn; eldritch in the old sense of fairy land, rather than Lovecraftian, which is my usual go-to. According to one source I looked at although the term is from Middle English it originated up north, in Scotland, so that's where I set this fic. I think it's a little soft. Midwinterspring, I hope this suits! Thanks so much for the prompt and for donating to support the runoff election!
> 
> Thank you to flypaper_brain for brainstorming and betaing this fic <3
> 
> Thanks to an anonymous friend for the moodboard <3
> 
>   
> 

Rey had been talking about visiting Scotland for as long as Ben had known her, before they were even technically dating, so when they'd started talking about marriage, planning the wedding, Scotland was the obvious place for them to honeymoon. 

Rey had settled on the Highlands, flying into Glasgow and then driving north, a two-week tour encompassing driving, hiking, sightseeing, and sleeping together in what Rey promised were cozy yet highly-rated accommodation, mostly small inns and bed and breakfasts. Ben was skeptical but he loved his wife - his wife! - and so he was happy to go along with her. And so far the trip had been fine. They were halfway through and were now spending two days in a small village nestled next to a mid-sized forest. 

“Good morning!” The innkeeper, Canady, greeted them as they came down for breakfast. The man didn’t seem to smile, but Ben appreciated his grouchy friendliness. The room was the same one they’d eaten dinner in the evening before, and during the day it functioned as the village’s only pub. The furniture was dark wood and the carpet was mangy, but the bar set in the corner was a piece of art and Canady’s presence brightened up the space. They sat at a table next to the window, facing the village green. An old man with a shaggy beard walked past with an equally shaggy dog on a leash, and a couple of children rode past on bicycles, their shouts of laughter chasing them down the lane. Rey laughed along with them, and Ben was enjoying her laughter as his eyes drew across the room, his gaze settling on a mural that dominated the longest inside wall. He’d noticed it the night before, but it had been too dark to examine. In the light of day he could see it more clearly. It was a hill, with a forest at its peak and something tall and grey about halfway up. It was clearly an old painting, very old, but the colors of the hill’s meadow were vibrant, as was the mottled blue and white of the sky. The forest, on the other hand, was dark and foreboding, and something about it made Ben shiver.

He was squinting at it, trying to figure out what the grey thing might be, when Canady approached with two cups of coffee and, following Ben’s gaze, nodded at the wall.

“It’s something else, isn’t it?”

“What is it?” Ben asked, reaching for the sugar packets.

“Our forest.” The older man thrust his chin toward the window. “Our hill, our forest, and Old Finn.”

“Old Finn?” Rey looked away from the window to join the conversation, her eyebrows drawn together in a way that Ben always found adorable.

“The stone,” Canady said, taking a step back as another couple entered the room. “You’ll see him on your way up. You are going hiking today, aye?”

Ben glanced down at himself, and then over at Rey. They wore matching outfits - jeans, boots, flannel - and he chuckled. “Guess it’s obvious.”

“Guess so,” the older man said with a smile. “Have a good time, it’s a nice hike, and a beautiful day for it. Just be sure to stay on the path.”

After Rey and Ben had eaten their breakfast, when they’d gone back upstairs and shouldered their packs and were on their way out for their hike, Canady stopped them at the doorway. He held a cup of coffee in one hand, aromatic and so hot it steamed in the cool air. 

“Stay on the path,” he said, looking between them, the expression on his face too serious for such a beautiful day.

“Sure,” Ben said. “We’ll see you this afternoon.”

The walk up to the forest was uneventful. They walked across the village green, greeting the bearded man and his shaggy dog on the other side. Up the main street, then across to the hill. Ben could see the likeness of the place to the painting at the inn, all the way down to the brightness of the meadow and the gloominess of the forest. They walked up the path through the meadow - not present in the old mural - and passed the standing stone, Old Finn, off to their left. It was an impressive tooth of granite, straight and strong, and Ben swore that it glittered slightly in the bright morning sunlight.

“Old Finn,” he said, admiring it. “Looks like he’s guarding the forest. It’s not in the guidebook.”

“That doesn't mean much,” Rey replied. “There’s a lot that doesn’t make it into the guidebooks.”

“I guess.” Ben slowed as they approached the top of the hill. Is it always this sunny? I thought Scotland was a grey and rainy place.”

Rey shrugged. “Maybe we got lucky.”

They paused together where the path widened into a dirt clearing before narrowing again to enter the woods. Here there was deep shade, and they turned around to admire the view - down the hill to the village, and the river and another mountain beyond - until Rey broke the silence.

“You ready to hike?”

“I’m ready,” he said, then added with a smile and a very stern tone, “Just be sure to stay on the path.”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Sure. Come on, let’s go!”

They stepped between the trees and into the dimness of the forest.

* * *

“Are you lost?”

“Oh! I…” Rey looked around. Trees. They were surrounded by trees. She looked down, at her feet; the tops of her boots were covered in dried leaves. Her ankle was sore, and she was hungry. There was no path that she could discern. She shook her head, which felt heavy, as though she’d just awakened from a deep sleep. “I don’t know.”

“Rey?” Ben’s voice, soft and sleepy, sounded from beside her, and his fingers slipped between hers. “Where are we?”

A laugh. A bright smile. Dark skin. The crunch of leaves.

“You _are_ lost.” The voice was bright, like the smile. Friendly, almost joyful.

“I suppose we are.”

“Are you hurt?”

Rey shifted more weight to her right foot and flinched as a sharp pain shot up her leg. “I think I twisted my ankle.”

A frown, a shake of the head. “You should have that looked at.” A sly glance. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

Another laugh, and a hand, extended. “Let me help you.”

Rey glanced around, everything around her strange and unfamiliar. Even Ben, who stared straight ahead and wobbled from side to side, his lips moving silently as though he was speaking to himself, or perhaps singing. And most especially the friendly young man with the dark skin and the brilliant smile who held his hand out to her with a promise of safety. She was uncertain, but he was right - they were completely and utterly lost, she was injured, and hungry. She didn’t have a choice.

She took his hand.

* * *

The sun was still up when they stepped out from the treeline. Rey was a bit surprised, because although it was summer, and they were quite far north, they’d been lost in the forest for what felt like hours and hours, _days_ even, although she was certain they had not actually been lost for days. For some time, though, a long time. They’d gone off the path and then they couldn't find it again and they couldn’t see the sun so they’d wandered and wandered and then… something? Someone? She shook her head in the light of the sun, and tried to remember, but whatever it was, was gone. She faced the sun and smiled, happy for the warm glow against her face. She’d been certain that the dimness of the woods would follow them out. But no - there was the gravel path, leading down from the small clearing where the grass had been trampled down by countless hikers who came before them.

“This is where we came in?” Ben asked her, raising a hand to his brow and squinting against the sun. “It looks different.”

“It only looks different because we’re facing the other way,” Rey said fondly, straightening the straps of her day pack and heading down the hill. “See, there’s the standing stone.”

“Old Finn.” Ben gazed at the thing as they wandered past. Much taller than it was wide, it stood like a sentinel in the middle of the meadow that linked the forest above with the village below. “It looks the same.”

“It would be weird if it didn’t look the same,” Rey scoffed, although she thinks she knows what he means. Everything _does_ look the same as it did that morning, when they left the pub after an early breakfast, excited for a hike through the woods followed by an afternoon nap and an evening walk along the river. Rey didn’t feel the same, though. She felt strange, a bit lightheaded; like she walked into the woods as one person and came out as another. The world outside of the forest shouldn’t look the same, but it did.

“What time do you think it is?” Ben asked, speeding up to walk next to her. She glanced up at the sun and frowned. There was something odd about it but she couldn’t figure out what it was. They followed the path down to the left, it was a bit steeper there so Ben walked in front. Rey shouted to make sure he heard her over the wind, ever present up there, that rolled across the field and danced along the edge of the trees, far above and getting farther away with every step. 

“I don’t know. Seven, maybe?”

The path flattened out again, and Ben waited for her to catch up. He looked down at her with his eyebrows drawn together, corners of his mouth turned down. Rey would have found his confusion adorable if she hadn’t felt it so much herself.

“You think we were in there for twelve hours?” 

The further they got down the path, the less certain Rey was about how long they were in the forest, and about what happened there. She considered his question and quickly ran through their day. Breakfast at the pub, hike up the hill, Ben pointing out the standing stone and laughing about how it looked like a guardian. Rey had nodded, smiling as she thought about the silly warning from the grumpy old man who owned the pub where they were staying, down in the village. How they needed to stay on the path. And then they’d stepped into the forest. They’d walked for a while, and then she’d seen a pretty flower several yards off to the right, and they’d stepped off the path to go look at it, and then… Rey wasn’t sure. She thought that perhaps she had fallen, and they’d met someone. He - she was certain it was a he - had fed them. Helped them. She’d held his hand. But she couldn't remember anything else about him, or how exactly they got out of the forest.

Ben grabbed Rey’s arm and pulled her to a halt. They were still on the gravel path, only feet from the sidewalk that would lead them the rest of the way down into the village. He held her tight enough to hurt, and his face was twisted, tears trembling along his eyelids. He blinked, and one splashed down onto his cheek, and he leaned even closer and whispered, “ _Why can’t I remember?_ ”

Rey kissed him, because she wasn’t sure what else she could do. But that did what it needed to do; it calmed him, and when he was calm, she was calm too. Then she took him by the hand and led him onto the sidewalk, down the road, across the village square, nodding at the bearded man walking his shaggy dog, and back into the pub. 

“That was quick!” Canady shouted at them from behind the bar, gave them a wave with the cleaning cloth in his hand. A steaming coffee cup sat at his elbow. “Did you forget something?”

Dazed and hot from the walk down the hill, Rey and Ben stood together hand-in-hand and stared at the man. It only took a moment before a flash of horrified understanding passed across his face, and he was out from behind the bar, corralling them into one of the booths that lined the windowless long wall of the room. A few minutes later they were both sipping from glasses of cool water, and Canady set a plate of brown bread and chunks of white cheese before them.

“On the house,” he said, lowering himself into a stool set at the end of the table. He glanced past them, at the mural that covered the wall, but he quickly looked away. Rey knew that Ben had been looking at it at breakfast, but she hadn’t paid it much attention the night before, or this morning, being too absorbed in their plans. She looked at it now. The field was bright and sunny, the stone painted lovingly, as though it sparkled in bright light, but the forest was dark, foreboding, the space between the trunks filled in with a black so dark it felt like something instead of nothing. 

“How long were we gone?” Rey asked, ripping her gaze away.

“Well,” Canady scraped his cup against the table. “Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

“But it takes fifteen minutes to get there.” Ben sounded sad, and lost, and Rey felt that too. Confusion, and loss. She looked back up at the mural, and found that keeping it in her field of vision made her feel better. 

“How long did you think you were gone?” Canady sounded afraid, but now that she’d had a moment to rest, Rey didn’t understand why. 

“All day,” she answered. “Hours and hours.”

“That mural,” Ben interrupted. “It’s very, uh, true to life.”

“Aye,” the older man replied, still sounding on edge. “That it is.” 

Rey stared at the forest in the painting. It made her think of being in the real forest. Even though she couldn’t remember it, she knew that something special had happened there. There was a yearning in her chest, something that had always been there, she thought, but which had been awakened somehow.

“How old is it?” Ben asked. “The painting, I mean.” With every question he was sounding more like himself - more certain - and that pleased Rey.

“No idea. When I moved in I was told it was original to the building. So, two hundred years, I suppose. Give or take. But...”

“How long has the stone been there?”

Rey could hear the older man shifting in his seat. “No idea. Three thousand years? Five thousand? Maybe older.” He couldn’t hide his growing agitation, but Rey didn’t understand why he might be upset. For the first time in her life, things were beginning to make sense.

“Old Finn,” Ben murmured. “Why do you call the stone Old Finn?” The darkness in the painting shifted, or maybe it was just a shaft of sunlight shining in from the windows on the other side of the room. Rey edged closer to the wall, hoping to get a better look. She wasn’t sure what she might see; perhaps a brilliant smile paired with beautiful brown eyes, a joyful laugh, a hand extended in friendship.

“Because of the forest. There’s stories about a thing in the forest.” Canady’s cup scraped against the wood of the tabletop as he set it down. “That’s why I told you to stay on the path.” He muttered, so quietly Rey barely heard him. “I wish you’d listened to me.”

Rey reached up and touched the painting just above the wainscoting, where the green of the field grass began. It was chilly, hard, paint on plaster, but it sent a frisson of heat up her spine. She allowed her finger to wander slowly up, up the wall, towards the dark forest looming above.

“Have you ever seen it?” Ben asked. “The thing in the forest?”

“I haven’t. But I’ve heard stories.”

Rey turned to look at Ben across the table. He was staring up at the mural, too, his eyes shining. A glance at Canady revealed a man spooked. He caught her eye.

“You should go to your room, have a nap.” His knuckles around the coffee cup were white, as was the skin of his face. So pale, with such wide eyes. “You can leave tomorrow. Come on.” He stood up and took Ben by the arm, tugging him out of the booth. Ben complied, but stepped around him as soon as he was standing and helped Rey slide out of her side of the booth.

“I don’t want to leave.” Rey gripped Ben’s hand tightly in hers. “I think we should go back to the forest. Don’t you?” 

“Yes,” he said, already tugging her towards the door. “I think that’s what we should do.” Having Ben reinforce the yearning behind her heart solidified Rey’s certainty, and she followed Ben quickly, until they found themselves blocked at the door. Canady stood in the doorway, his arms and feet bracketing the opening. 

“Please,” he said, his voice a desperate whisper. “Please don’t go back into the forest.”

Ben took a step closer, bringing himself toe-to-toe with him, and even though the innkeeper was a sturdy man he was old, and Ben was much bigger. Ben towered over Canady, and Rey could have sworn that the shorter man trembled under his glare.

“Are you going to stop us?” He lowered his voice to a menacing rumble, and Rey found it thrilling. Canady looked for a moment like he might seriously challenge them, but only for a moment. He shook his head and slowly stepped aside, lowering his arms. Rey and Ben rushed past him, out the door, and passed the bearded man and his shaggy dog one last time. As they ran across the village green Rey heard Canady shouting after them, and she realized that they had left their packs in the pub. She wasn’t too worried, though; she didn’t think they would need them where they were going.

**Author's Note:**

> I did minimal research for this fic. The village and forest + standing stone in this fic is completely made up. [Here](https://www.visitscotland.com/about/history/standing-stones/) is an article about standing stones in Scotland.
> 
> I'm @flowerofcarrots on Twitter, come yell at me!


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